The Tyrannosaurus — an innocent in many ways — had never had a personal message in her life, and the notion was an exciting one. Her forearms were small and weak, compared to her immense hind legs, but she was able to grip the nondescript little animal and lift him fifteen feet up, where she held him nose to nose, his beady red-brown eyes meeting her huge yellow ones with their long slit pupils. “Be quick,” she advised him, “for I am hungry, and where there’s one of you, there’s usually a whole lot, like zucchini. What was the message you wanted to give me?”

The creature, if somewhat slow of action, atoned for this failing by thinking far faster than any dinosaur. “A large asteroid is about to crash into the earth,” it chirped brightly back at the Tyrannosaurus. “So if you happen to be nursing any unacted desires, now would be the time. To act them out, I mean,” it added, realizing that the Tyrannosaurus was blinking in puzzlement at him. “It’ll happen next Thursday.”

Another week, another Peter S. Beagle fable that shouldn't have explained itself. This time around I thought the story was great and the moral should have been cut. It is inexplicable how the shrew knew so much about the future, but I was able to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy it.

I LOVE these Peter Beagle fables! The first time I listened to this one, I was laughing hysterically. The second and third time, I didn't laugh as hard because the element of suprise was gone, but I still loved it!

This one was fun. I couldn't take it seriously when the shrew started to predict the meteor and explain evolution, but that's okay, it was made quite clear that it wasn't supposed to be taken seriously. Beagle hung a lantern on it, especially with the mention of Thursday, and it worked.